On Tuesday, Ukraine’s military announced it planned to evacuate its last forces from Mariupol, their last stronghold, as 82-day-old fighters began to surrender, signaling the end of Europe’s bloodiest struggle in decades.
Reporters witnessed five buses depart the massive Azovstal steelworks overnight and arrive in the Russian-controlled town of Novoazovsk. Wounded men were laying on stretchers three bunks high in one, which was marked with the Latin letter ‘Z,’ which has become a symbol of Russia’s attack. One man was wheeled out with huge bandages over his head.
The Russian Ministry of Defense posted a video showing fighters exiting the factory, some on stretchers and others with their hands up to be checked by Russian troops.
256 Ukrainian fighters “laid down their arms and surrendered,” according to Russia, with 51 critically wounded. Ukraine said 264 soldiers had left the metal plant, including 53 wounded, and that efforts were on to evacuate the remaining soldiers.
“The ‘Mariupol’ garrison has completed its combat mission,” the Ukrainian Armed Forces General Staff said in a statement.
“The commanders of the forces stationed at Azovstal were ordered by the supreme military leadership to spare the lives of the personnel… Mariupol’s defenders are modern-day heroes.”
The surrender appears to be the conclusion of the fight of Mariupol, in which Ukraine thinks tens of thousands of people died as a result of the Russian bombing and siege.
The city is now completely destroyed. Its ultimate conquest is Russia’s biggest triumph of the war, granting Moscow complete control of the Sea of Azov’s shoreline as well as an unbroken area of eastern and southern Ukraine roughly the size of Greece.
However, Russia’s effort has stalled elsewhere, with Russian troops in the northeastern city of Kharkiv recently retreating at the fastest rate since being driven out of the north and the area around Kyiv at the end of March.
Authorities on both sides provided little details regarding the fate of Mariupol’s remaining defenders, with Ukrainian officials suggesting the possibility of some sort of exchange for Russian detainees but not providing any specifics.
In an early-morning address, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said, “We hope that we will be able to spare the lives of our guys.” “Among them are some who have been gravely injured. They’re being looked after. Ukraine requires living Ukrainian heroes.”
Hanna Malyar, Ukraine’s Deputy Defense Minister, said 53 injured steelworkers were transferred to a hospital in Russian-controlled Novoazovsk, 32 kilometers (20 miles) to the east, and another 211 to the town of Olenivka, which is also in a region held by Russian-backed separatists.
She noted that all of the evacuees will be subject to a possible prisoner exchange with Russia.
REPORTS OF HEAVY SHELLING
Mariupol is Russia’s largest city since its invasion on February 24, handing Moscow a decisive triumph for the first time in months, when its war in Ukraine has generally been marred by military catastrophe against an underdog foe.
The Azov Regiment, the Ukrainian battalion that had held out in the steelworks for 82 days, said it had accomplished its goal by allowing Ukraine to defend the rest of the country in a statement released late Monday.
The Azov Regiment declared on social media that “in order to preserve lives, the entire Mariupol garrison is obeying the approved decision of the Supreme Military Command and hopes for the support of the Ukrainian people.”
Denys Prokopenko, one of the unit’s top leaders, described the choice to spare his men’s lives as “the greatest level of overseeing troops” in an accompanying video.
Thousands of civilians perished during Russia’s siege of the formerly affluent port of 400,000 people, according to the UN and the Red Cross, with the exact toll uncounted but certain to be Europe’s worst since the 1990s wars in Chechnya and the Balkans.
Residents of Mariupol were forced to hide in cellars for months, with no access to food, freshwater, or heat, with dead bodies littering the streets above them. Two episodes, in particular, the March bombings of a maternity clinic and a theater where hundreds of people were sheltering, became global symbols of Russia’s strategy of showering destruction on population centers.
Thousands of civilians are thought to have been buried in mass graves or impromptu pits excavated by their neighbors in their gardens. Ukraine claims that Russia used mobile cremation vehicles to conceal evidence of civilian deaths and forcibly deported thousands of inhabitants to Russia.
Moscow claims to have taken in refugees and denies targeting or deporting civilians. It claims to be re-establishing normalcy in the city, which is part of the Donbas region it claims on behalf of separatists it has backed since 2014.
ADVANCES IN UKRAINE
In other areas, Ukrainian forces have been making the fastest progress in almost a month, forcing Russian soldiers out of the area around Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city.
Ukraine claims to have crossed the Russian border 40 kilometers north of Kharkiv. They’ve also advanced at least 40 kilometers east, to the Siverskiy Donets River, where they could pose a threat to Russia’s main Donbas thrust.
Despite significant losses in an attempted river crossing last week, Russia continues to accelerate its advance. According to Zelensky’s office, the entire front line around Donetsk was under persistent intense shelling on Tuesday. Russian soldiers have reinforced and are prepared to restart their onslaught near Slovyansk and Drobysheve, southeast of Izium, according to Ukraine’s general staff.
Russian attacks have persisted in the areas surrounding Kyiv and Lviv, a western city near the Polish border. A witness said a succession of explosions hit Lviv early Tuesday. According to Zelensky’s office, one missile hit a military base, but no one was injured.
According to regional governor Roman Starovoit, a village in Russia’s western province of Kursk, which borders Ukraine, was targeted by Ukrainian fire on Tuesday. Three homes and a school were damaged, but no one was hurt, he said.
CLIMBDOWN OVER NATO BY PUTIN
As a result of the invasion, traditionally non-aligned Finland and Sweden have announced plans to join NATO, bringing about the very expansion of the Western alliance that President Vladimir Putin had long cited as one of the main justifications for ordering his “special military operation” in February.
Following weeks of vague threats, Putin appeared to back down, declaring in a speech on Monday that Russia had “no problems” with either Finland or Sweden, and that their NATO membership would not be a problem unless the organization put more troops or weapons there.
Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Tuesday that joining NATO would “probably not make much difference” because Finland and Sweden had previously been collaborating in military drills.
